The first stage is pure love; the second, pure
selfishness.
Still, Alan Merrick was now "getting on in his profession," and, as
people said, it was high time he should be settled. They said it
as they might have said it was high time he should take a business
partner. From that lowest depth of emotional disgrace Herminia
Barton was to preserve him. It was her task in life, though she
knew it not, to save Alan Merrick's soul. And nobly she saved it.
Alan, "looking about him," with some fine qualities of nature
underlying in the background that mean social philosophy of the
class from which he sprang, fell frankly in love almost at first
sight with Herminia. He admired and respected her. More than
that, he understood her. She had power in her purity to raise his
nature for a time to something approaching her own high level.
True woman has the real Midas gift: all that she touches turns to
purest gold. Seeing Herminia much and talking with her, Alan could
not fail to be impressed with the idea that here was a soul which
could do a great deal more for him than "make him comfortable,"--
which could raise him to moral heights he had hardly yet dreamt
of,--which could wake in him the best of which he was capable.
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